


The Boy's Handy Guide to Averting the Ontological Paradox by Brown, Polchinski & Bootstrap

by dorothy_notgale



Series: Relativity [2]
Category: Back to the Future (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, But His Universe Was Negated, Character Death (?), Doc POV, Gen, Prequel, Reflection, Sequel, Sidequel, Subjective Chronology, This One Is Prose, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:13:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothy_notgale/pseuds/dorothy_notgale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doc Brown can accomplish anything if he puts his mind to it. Time travel can destroy the universe. This may not be the worst possible idea.<br/>Finally, a look at what happened after (before) the events of 15 Minutes. This is a sequel and will make absolutely ZERO sense if you haven't already read that story. This is also a normal story, not graphics/newswriting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Friday October 18, 1985

The garage lights were on, and Marty had a date that night.  
　　Emmett steeled himself for a confrontation; only once had a break-in resulted in a positive outcome. All the rest had been unequivocally negative experiences, and with the device so close to completion, he could not afford problems at this juncture. If only he were carrying his firearm.  
　　When he entered his lab and saw the tall, rangy man bent awkwardly over his workbench, his first thought was that at least this confirmed that his work would finally pay off. His second was that he must have taken leave of his senses, because he knew better than to imperil the space-time continuum as this man was doing.  
　　Then the other turned to face him, and he saw the differences. The ragged clothes and shaven head were nothing compared to the burning conviction in the spectre's eyes. Yes, Emmett knew better, but this shorn, gaunt creature was not him--had probably not been him for some time. Emmett took an involuntary step back from it, nearly tripping over poor whining Einie in his convulsive fear.  
　　"Listen," said a voice at once familiar and alien, strained with urgency and crisper than any tape recording had ever been. "Listen, there's not much time--I have to tell you--"  
　　"Are you _insane_ ‽ Don't tell me anything! The repercussions could be catastrophic!"  
　　"Insane." A bandaged right hand rose slowly to cover the man's gaping slash of a mouth as he let out a dry, leaf-crackle laugh entirely devoid of mirth. "Maybe I am, but you will be too if I can't stop it."  
　　"Stop what?" The words were involuntary, leaping forth even as he regretted asking. He _knew_ better.  
　　"The _catastrophe_. Marty."  
　　"I -I can't hear this." Yet Emmett didn't cover his ears, didn't run. He'd never been honest about the reasons for time travel; he would use it, given the chance. Of course he was listening.  
　　The other seemed almost to shimmer then, subtly clashing with the fabric of the world around them. Emmett had to look at his own palm for reassurance: same long, familiar fingers, same calluses, no bandage, no shine. _I'm real_. That low laugh made his skin crawl until it was cut off by a hiss of pain; he moved towards the collapsing man.  
　　"No!" Teeth bared in a feral snarl as it shoved the workbench stool between them with a leg held unnaturally stiff.  
　　"No?" Emmett halted, hands up in acquiescence. Perhaps physical contact would precipitate some manner of universe-negating disaster.  
　　"Radiation." A line of watery blood began to drip from its nose. "No time for a suit--never enough time."  
　　"Great Scott."  
　　"Your calculations are wrong. Marty died. It's 88, 1.21, and--" He wavered, became translucent, fell to his knees beside the stool. "Thank God. The waveform--"  
　　"Is collapsing because of what you're saying to me."  
　　"You're listening."  
　　 _Pointless to deny it._  
　　"Of course I'm listening, now tell me--"  
　　"--the rest. Yes." It wasn't much; just a few minor modifications, a tiny change that rippled outward to save or destroy Emmett's life as he knew it.  
　　He sighed. "It will be done, I promise."  
　　Those familiar/not fingers clenched on the edge of the stool, then released. The body never hit the floor.  
　　Emmett swallowed hard and began to pack his suitcase. He had a week to make it all right.


	2. Monday November 28, 1955

　　Emmett was attempting to straighten his garage (an effort later proven from an historical perspective to be utterly futile) when he found it: a letter-size envelope wedged in a gap between his workbench and a wastepaper basket.  
　　The pieces of Marty's note still waited unread in his overcoat pocket like a talisman. This one, though... This must have fallen out of his future self's suitcase when Emmett investigated it.  
　　Flipping the envelope face-up, he saw that it was addressed in his own handwriting.  
　　  
　　 _SELF--_  
　　ESSENTIAL CORRECTIONS!  
　　READ THIS OR  
　　MARTY DIES!  
　　  
　　Marty. Of course.  
　　There was a flask half-full of ethanol on the table; Emmett preemptively downed a gulp for the pain and then started up a Bunsen burner. The clear, steady simplicity of its flame illuminated his whole garage.  
　　Recent events had shown him how dangerous it was to alter the timeline. Marty had shown him; the damage control necessary had been absurd! To interfere again, in this fashion--his elder self's mind must be going.  
　　Then again, his elder self had perfected (would perfect?) time travel.  
　　Fetching his coat, he fished out the fragments of the other note. He should have thrown them away earlier; they were nothing but a temptation. Stacked all together and pinched in tongs, the two letters seemed like small things to be so dangerous.  
　　Carefully, methodically, he set an ashtray next to the burner. The flame wavered in a gust of his breath as the envelope edges began to take on a delicate brown tint.  
　　Staring into the light made his eyes water, and the back of his throat burned from the ethanol. Nothing more.  
　　The flame must have gone out; everything went black.


	3. Saturday October 26, 1985

　　"What about all that talk about screwing up future events? The space-time continuum?"  
　　Marty's tearstained face looked dazed, incredulous, in the lights of the parking lot.  
　　"I figured, 'what the Hell.'" _After all, in for a penny, in for a pound_. Reading his own letter from the future had made it far easier to justify reading Marty's. Especially with a hangover.  
　　A little later, while fully obeying a STOP sign instead of breezing through as he usually did, Emmett glanced down and saw inkstains still marring his right hand. Marty didn't seem to notice, practically dozing in the passenger seat. Emmett dimly recalled how little time his companion had devoted to achieving full somnolence during that long-ago week of endless panic.  
　　He hadn't needed to refer to his old letter when writing the one Marty had unwittingly carried in the suitcase. Though that could have been because many readings over the years left it indelibly printed in his memory, in truth the words and numbers had torn out like he was writing it for the first time. Maybe he was, at that.  
　　The third-hand account of tragedy pained him, despite his total lack of recollection regarding the relevant incident. His battered, singed copy of that letter nestled safely in the same pocket as the taped-together one from Marty. Funny how it had and had not gone astray: the contents said it was meant to travel only a week back, to the 18th--his intended first manned trip, had the Libyans not intervened. Yet finding it in his garage in 1955 had served just as well.  
　　For once, the scientist in him didn't really care to know more than the few details he possessed: that a Marty had (and had not) died, that a radiation leak had (and had not) claimed an Emmett. That the solution was available and not forgotten. That an Emmett had (and had not) been shot.  
　　He knew he was the lucky one. Marty still had to remember seeing the shooting; Emmett was able to reduce whatever had happened to the words of a letter he nearly burned thirty years ago. No, he didn't care to know more about the self who came beside him. He didn't care to think about the one he'd been in his relative youth, who'd considered sacrificing everything that was and would be good for logic and safety.  
　　Emmett, alive, driving his operational time machine to drop his sleepy friend off at home on a Saturday morning, could not and would not venture to imagine another life or another self. These were the ones he wanted.


End file.
